This
short story was the basis for the movie, Memento.
I added the part numbers because I found myself reading it incrementally;
they are not part of the original story. The italics, type,
emphases, and so on are original. This was copied from the Esquire feature
on it, and is also available on the DVD version of Memento. I archived both here to avoid link-rot.

1

"What
like a bullet can undeceive!"
—Herman Melville

Your
wife always used to say you'd be late for your own funeral. Remember that?
Her little joke because you were such a slob—always late, always
forgetting stuff, even before the incident.

Right
about now you're probably wondering if you were late for hers.

You
were there, you can be sure of that. That's what the picture's for—the
one tacked to the wall by the door. It's not customary to take pictures at
a funeral, but somebody, your doctors, I guess, knew you wouldn't
remember. They had it blown up nice and big and stuck it right there, next
to the door, so you couldn't help but see it every time you got up to find
out where she was.

The
guy in the picture, the one with the flowers? That's you. And what are you
doing? You're reading the headstone, trying to figure out whose funeral
you're at, same as you're reading it now, trying to figure why someone
stuck that picture next to your door. But why bother reading something
that you won't remember?

She's
gone, gone for good, and you must be hurting right now, hearing the news.
Believe me, I know how you feel. You're probably a wreck. But give it five
minutes, maybe ten. Maybe you can even go a whole half hour before you
forget.

But
you will forget—I guarantee it. A few more minutes and you'll be heading
for the door, looking for her all over again, breaking down when you find
the picture. How many times do you have to hear the news before some other
part of your body, other than that busted brain of yours, starts to
remember?

Maybe
you can't understand what happened to you. But you do remember what
happened to HER, don't you? The doctors don't want to talk about it. They
won't answer my questions. They don't think it's right for a man in your
condition to hear about those things. But you remember enough, don't you?
You remember his face.

This
is why I'm writing to you. Futile, maybe. I don't know how many times
you'll have to read this before you listen to me. I don't even know how
long you've been locked up in this room already. Neither do you. But your
advantage in forgetting is that you'll forget to write yourself off as a
lost cause.

Sooner
or later you'll want to do something about it. And when you do, you'll
just have to trust me, because I'm the only one who can help you.

2
EARL OPENS ONE EYE after another to a stretch of white ceiling tiles
interrupted by a hand-printed sign taped right above his head, large
enough for him to read from the bed. An alarm clock is ringing somewhere.
He reads the sign, blinks, reads it again, then takes a look at the room.

It's
a white room, overwhelmingly white, from the walls and the curtains to the
institutional furniture and the bedspread. The alarm clock is ringing from
the white desk under the window with the white curtains. At this point
Earl probably notices that he is lying on top of his white comforter. He
is already wearing a dressing gown and slippers.

He
lies back and reads the sign taped to the ceiling again. It says, in crude
block capitals, THIS IS YOUR ROOM. THIS IS A ROOM IN A HOSPITAL. THIS IS
WHERE YOU LIVE NOW.

Earl
rises and takes a look around. The room is large for a hospital—empty
linoleum stretches out from the bed in three directions. Two doors and a
window. The view isn't very helpful, either—a close of trees in the
center of a carefully manicured piece of turf that terminates in a sliver
of two-lane blacktop. The trees, except for the evergreens, are
bare—early spring or late fall, one or the other.

Every
inch of the desk is covered with Post-it notes, legal pads, neatly printed
lists, psychological textbooks, framed pictures. On top of the mess is a
half-completed crossword puzzle. The alarm clock is riding a pile of
folded newspapers. Earl slaps the snooze button and takes a cigarette from
the pack taped to the sleeve of his dressing gown. He pats the empty
pockets of his pajamas for a light. He rifles the papers on the desk,
looks quickly through the drawers. Eventually he finds a box of kitchen
matches taped to the wall next to the window. Another sign is taped just
above the box. It says in loud yellow letters, CIGARETTE? CHECK FOR LIT
ONES FIRST, STUPID.

Earl
laughs at the sign, lights his cigarette, and takes a long draw. Taped to
the window in front of him is another piece of looseleaf paper headed YOUR
SCHEDULE.

It
charts off the hours, every hour, in blocks: 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. is
labeled go BACK TO SLEEP. Earl consults the alarm clock: 8:15. Given the
light outside, it must be morning. He checks his watch: 10:30. He presses
the watch to his ear and listens. He gives the watch a wind or two and
sets it to match the alarm clock.

According
to the schedule, the entire block from 8:00 to 8:30 has been labeled BRUSH
YOUR TEETH. Earl laughs again and walks over to the bathroom.

The
bathroom window is open. As he flaps his arms to keep warm, he notices the
ashtray on the windowsill. A cigarette is perched on the ashtray, burning
steadily through a long finger of ash. He frowns, extinguishes the old
butt, and replaces it with the new one.

The
toothbrush has already been treated to a smudge of white paste. The tap is
of the push-button variety—a dose of water with each nudge. Earl pushes
the brush into his cheek and fiddles it back and forth while he opens the
medicine cabinet. The shelves are stocked with single-serving packages of
vitamins, aspirin, antidiuretics. The mouthwash is also single-serving,
about a shot-glass-worth of blue liquid in a sealed plastic bottle. Only
the toothpaste is regular-sized. Earl spits the paste out of his mouth and
replaces it with the mouthwash. As he lays the toothbrush next to the
toothpaste, he notices a tiny wedge of paper pinched between the glass
shelf and the steel backing of the medicine cabinet. He spits the frothy
blue fluid into the sink and nudges for some more water to rinse it down.
He closes the medicine cabinet and smiles at his reflection in the mirror.

"Who
needs half an hour to brush their teeth?"

The
paper has been folded down to a minuscule size with all the precision of a
sixth-grader's love note. Earl unfolds it and smooths it against the
mirror. It reads—

IF
YOU CAN STILL READ THIS, THEN YOU'RE A FUCKING COWARD.

Earl
stares blankly at the paper, then reads it again. He turns it over. On the
back it reads—

P.S.:
AFTER YOU'VE READ THIS, HIDE IT AGAIN.

Earl
reads both sides again, then folds the note back down to its original size
and tucks it underneath the toothpaste.

Maybe
then he notices the scar. It begins just beneath the ear, jagged and
thick, and disappears abruptly into his hairline. Earl turns his head and
stares out of the corner of his eye to follow the scar's progress. He
traces it with a fingertip, then looks back down at the cigarette burning
in the ashtray. A thought seizes him and he spins out of the bathroom.

He
is caught at the door to his room, one hand on the knob. Two pictures are
taped to the wall by the door. Earl's attention is caught first by the MRI,
a shiny black frame for four windows into someone's skull. In marker, the
picture is labeled YOUR BRAIN. Earl stares at it. Concentric circles in
different colors. He can make out the big orbs of his eyes and, behind
these, the twin lobes of his brain. Smooth wrinkles, circles, semicircles.
But right there in the middle of his head, circled in marker, tunneled in
from the back of his neck like a maggot into an apricot, is something
different. Deformed, broken, but unmistakable. A dark smudge, the shape of
a flower, right there in the middle of his brain.

He
bends to look at the other picture. It is a photograph of a man holding
flowers, standing over a fresh grave. The man is bent over, reading the
headstone. For a moment this looks like a hall of mirrors or the
beginnings of a sketch of infinity: the one man bent over, looking at the
smaller man, bent over, reading the headstone. Earl looks at the picture
for a long time. Maybe he begins to cry. Maybe he just stares silently at
the picture. Eventually, he makes his way back to the bed, flops down,
seals his eyes shut, tries to sleep.

The
cigarette burns steadily away in the bathroom. A circuit in the alarm
clock counts down from ten, and it starts ringing again.

Earl
opens one eye after another to a stretch of white ceiling tiles,
interrupted by a hand-printed sign taped right above his head, large
enough for him to read from the bed.

3You
can't have a normal life anymore. You must know that. How can you have a
girlfriend if you can't remember her name? Can't have kids, not unless you
want them to grow up with a dad who doesn't recognize them. Sure as hell
can't hold down a job. Not too many professions out there that value
forgetfulness. Prostitution, maybe. Politics, of course.

No.
Your life is over. You're a dead man. The only thing the doctors are
hoping to do is teach you to be less of a burden to the orderlies. And
they'll probably never let you go home, wherever that would be.

So
the question is not "to be or not to be," because you aren't.
The question is whether you want to do something about it. Whether revenge
matters to you.

It
does to most people. For a few weeks, they plot, they scheme, they take
measures to get even. But the passage of time is all it takes to erode
that initial impulse. Time is theft, isn't that what they say? And time
eventually convinces most of us that forgiveness is a virtue.
Conveniently, cowardice and forgiveness look identical at a certain
distance. Time steals your nerve.

If
time and fear aren't enough to dissuade people from their revenge, then
there's always authority, softly shaking its head and saying, We
understand, but you're the better man for letting it go. For rising above
it. For not sinking to their level. And besides, says authority, if you
try anything stupid, we'll lock you up in a little room.

But
they already put you in a little room, didn't they? Only they don't really
lock it or even guard it too carefully because you're a cripple. A corpse.
A vegetable who probably wouldn't remember to eat or take a shit if
someone wasn't there to remind you.

And
as for the passage of time, well, that doesn't really apply to you
anymore, does it? Just the same ten minutes, over and over again. So how
can you forgive if you can't remember to forget?

You
probably were the type to let it go, weren't you? Before. But you're not
the man you used to be. Not even half. You're a fraction; you're the
ten-minute man.

Of
course, weakness is strong. It's the primary impulse. You'd probably
prefer to sit in your little room and cry. Live in your finite collection
of memories, carefully polishing each one. Half a life set behind glass
and pinned to cardboard like a collection of exotic insects. You'd like to
live behind that glass, wouldn't you? Preserved in aspic.

You'd
like to but you can't, can you? You can't because of the last addition to
your collection. The last thing you remember. His face. His face and your
wife, looking to you for help.

And
maybe this is where you can retire to when it's over. Your little
collection. They can lock you back up in another little room and you can
live the rest of your life in the past. But only if you've got a little
piece of paper in your hand that says you got him.

You
know I'm right. You know there's a lot of work to do. It may seem
impossible, but I'm sure if we all do our part, we'll figure something
out. But you don't have much time. You've only got about ten minutes, in
fact. Then it starts all over again. So do something with the time you've
got.

4
EARL OPENS HIS EYES and blinks into the darkness. The alarm clock is
ringing. It says 3:20, and the moonlight streaming through the window
means it must be the early morning. Earl fumbles for the lamp, almost
knocking it over in the process. Incandescent light fills the room,
painting the metal furniture yellow, the walls yellow, the bedspread, too.
He lies back and looks up at the stretch of yellow ceiling tiles above
him, interrupted by a handwritten sign taped to the ceiling. He reads the
sign two, maybe three times, then blinks at the room around him.

It
is a bare room. Institutional, maybe. There is a desk over by the window.
The desk is bare except for the blaring alarm clock. Earl probably
notices, at this point, that he is fully clothed. He even has his shoes on
under the sheets. He extracts himself from the bed and crosses to the
desk. Nothing in the room would suggest that anyone lived there, or ever
had, except for the odd scrap of tape stuck here and there to the wall. No
pictures, no books, nothing. Through the window, he can see a full moon
shining on carefully manicured grass.

Earl
slaps the snooze button on the alarm clock and stares a moment at the two
keys taped to the back of his hand. He picks at the tape while he searches
through the empty drawers. In the left pocket of his jacket, he finds a
roll of hundred-dollar bills and a letter sealed in an envelope. He checks
the rest of the main room and the bathroom. Bits of tape, cigarette butts.
Nothing else.

Earl
absentmindedly plays with the lump of scar tissue on his neck and moves
back toward the bed. He lies back down and stares up at the ceiling and
the sign taped to it. The sign reads, GET UP, GET OUT RIGHT NOW. THESE
PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU.

Earl
closes his eyes.

5
They
tried to teach you to make lists in grade school, remember? Back when your
day planner was the back of your hand. And if your assignments came off in
the shower, well, then they didn't get done. No direction, they said. No
discipline. So they tried to get you to write it all down somewhere more
permanent.

Of
course, your grade-school teachers would be laughing their pants wet if
they could see you now. Because you've become the exact product of their
organizational lessons. Because you can't even take a piss without
consulting one of your lists.

They
were right. Lists are the only way out of this mess.

Here's
the truth: People, even regular people, are never just any one person with
one set of attributes. It's not that simple. We're all at the mercy of the
limbic system, clouds of electricity drifting through the brain. Every man
is broken into twenty-four-hour fractions, and then again within those
twenty-four hours. It's a daily pantomime, one man yielding control to the
next: a backstage crowded with old hacks clamoring for their turn in the
spotlight. Every week, every day. The angry man hands the baton over to
the sulking man, and in turn to the sex addict, the introvert, the
conversationalist. Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

This
is the tragedy of life. Because for a few minutes of every day, every man
becomes a genius. Moments of clarity, insight, whatever you want to call
them. The clouds part, the planets get in a neat little line, and
everything becomes obvious. I should quit smoking, maybe, or here's how I
could make a fast million, or such and such is the key to eternal
happiness. That's the miserable truth. For a few moments, the secrets of
the universe are opened to us. Life is a cheap parlor trick.

But
then the genius, the savant, has to hand over the controls to the next guy
down the pike, most likely the guy who just wants to eat potato chips, and
insight and brilliance and salvation are all entrusted to a moron or a
hedonist or a narcoleptic.

The
only way out of this mess, of course, is to take steps to ensure that you
control the idiots that you become. To take your chain gang, hand in hand,
and lead them. The best way to do this is with a list.

It's
like a letter you write to yourself. A master plan, drafted by the guy who
can see the light, made with steps simple enough for the rest of the
idiots to understand. Follow steps one through one hundred. Repeat as
necessary.

Your
problem is a little more acute, maybe, but fundamentally the same thing.

It's
like that computer thing, the Chinese room. You remember that? One guy
sits in a little room, laying down cards with letters written on them in a
language he doesn't understand, laying them down one letter at a time in a
sequence according to someone else's instructions. The cards are supposed
to spell out a joke in Chinese. The guy doesn't speak Chinese, of course.
He just follows his instructions.

There
are some obvious differences in your situation, of course: You broke out
of the room they had you in, so the whole enterprise has to be portable.
And the guy giving the instructions—that's you, too, just an earlier
version of you. And the joke you're telling, well, it's got a punch line.
I just don't think anyone's going to find it very funny.

So
that's the idea. All you have to do is follow your instructions. Like
climbing a ladder or descending a staircase. One step at a time. Right
down the list. Simple.

And
the secret, of course, to any list is to keep it in a place where you're
bound to see it.

6
HE
CAN HEAR THE BUZZING through his eyelids. Insistent. He reaches out for
the alarm clock, but he can't move his arm.

Earl
opens his eyes to see a large man bent double over him. The man looks up
at him, annoyed, then resumes his work. Earl looks around him. Too dark
for a doctor's office.

Then
the pain floods his brain, blocking out the other questions. He squirms
again, trying to yank his forearm away, the one that feels like it's
burning. The arm doesn't move, but the man shoots him another scowl. Earl
adjusts himself in the chair to see over the top of the man's head.

The
noise and the pain are both coming from a gun in the man's hand—a gun
with a needle where the barrel should be. The needle is digging into the
fleshy underside of Earl's forearm, leaving a trail of puffy letters
behind it.

Earl
tries to rearrange himself to get a better view, to read the letters on
his arm, but he can't. He lies back and stares at the ceiling.

Eventually
the tattoo artist turns off the noise, wipes Earl's forearm with a piece
of gauze, and wanders over to the back to dig up a pamphlet describing how
to deal with a possible infection. Maybe later he'll tell his wife about
this guy and his little note. Maybe his wife will convince him to call the
police.

Earl
looks down at the arm. The letters are rising up from the skin, weeping a
little. They run from just behind the strap of Earl's watch all the way to
the inside of his elbow. Earl blinks at the message and reads it again. It
says, in careful little capitals, I RAPED AND KILLED YOUR WIFE.

7It's
your birthday today, so I got you a little present. I would have just
bought you a beer, but who knows where that would have ended?

So
instead, I got you a bell. I think I may have had to pawn your watch to
buy it, but what the hell did you need a watch for, anyway?

You're
probably asking yourself, Why a bell? In fact, I'm guessing you're going
to be asking yourself that question every time you find it in your pocket.
Too many of these letters now. Too many for you to dig back into every
time you want to know the answer to some little question.

It's
a joke, actually. A practical joke. But think of it this way: I'm not
really laughing at you so much as with you.

I'd
like to think that every time you take it out of your pocket and wonder,
Why do I have this bell? a little part of you, a little piece of your
broken brain, will remember and laugh, like I'm laughing now.

Besides,
you do know the answer. It was something you learned before. So if you
think about it, you'll know.

Back
in the old days, people were obsessed with the fear of being buried alive.
You remember now? Medical science not being quite what it is today, it
wasn't uncommon for people to suddenly wake up in a casket. So rich folks
had their coffins outfitted with breathing tubes. Little tubes running up
to the mud above so that if someone woke up when they weren't supposed to,
they wouldn't run out of oxygen. Now, they must have tested this out and
realized that you could shout yourself hoarse through the tube, but it was
too narrow to carry much noise. Not enough to attract attention, at least.
So a string was run up the tube to a little bell attached to the
headstone. If a dead person came back to life, all he had to do was ring
his little bell till someone came and dug him up again.

I'm
laughing now, picturing you on a bus or maybe in a fast-food restaurant,
reaching into your pocket and finding your little bell and wondering to
yourself where it came from, why you have it. Maybe you'll even ring it.

Happy
birthday, buddy.

I
don't know who figured out the solution to our mutual problem, so I don't
know whether to congratulate you or me. A bit of a lifestyle change,
admittedly, but an elegant solution, nonetheless.

Look
to yourself for the answer.

That
sounds like something out of a Hallmark card. I don't know when you
thought it up, but my hat's off to you. Not that you know what the hell
I'm talking about. But, honestly, a real brainstorm. After all, everybody
else needs mirrors to remind themselves who they are. You're no different.

8
THE LITTLE MECHANICAL VOICE PAUSES, then repeats itself. It says,
"The time is 8:00 a.m. This is a courtesy call." Earl opens his
eyes and replaces the receiver. The phone is perched on a cheap veneer
headboard that stretches behind the bed, curves to meet the corner, and
ends at the minibar. The TV is still on, blobs of flesh color nattering
away at each other. Earl lies back down and is surprised to see himself,
older now, tanned, the hair pulling away from his head like solar flares.
The mirror on the ceiling is cracked, the silver fading in creases. Earl
continues to stare at himself, astonished by what he sees. He is fully
dressed, but the clothes are old, threadbare in places.

Earl
feels the familiar spot on his left wrist for his watch, but it's gone. He
looks down from the mirror to his arm. It is bare and the skin has changed
to an even tan, as if he never owned a watch in the first place. The skin
is even in color except for the solid black arrow on the inside of Earl's
wrist, pointing up his shirtsleeve. He stares at the arrow for a moment.
Perhaps he doesn't try to rub it off anymore. He rolls up his sleeve.

The
arrow points to a sentence tattooed along Earl's inner arm. Earl reads the
sentence once, maybe twice. Another arrow picks up at the beginning of the
sentence, points farther up Earl's arm, disappearing under the rolled-up
shirtsleeve. He unbuttons his shirt.

Looking
down on his chest, he can make out the shapes but cannot bring them into
focus, so he looks up at the mirror above him.

The
arrow leads up Earl's arm, crosses at the shoulder, and descends onto his
upper torso, terminating at a picture of a man's face that occupies most
of his chest. The face is that of a large man, balding, with a mustache
and a goatee. It is a particular face, but like a police sketch it has a
certain unreal quality.

The
rest of his upper torso is covered in words, phrases, bits of information,
and instructions, all of them written backward on Earl, forward in the
mirror.

Eventually
Earl sits up, buttons his shirt, and crosses to the desk. He takes out a
pen and a piece of notepaper from the desk drawer, sits, and begins to
write.

9
I
don't know where you'll be when you read this. I'm not even sure if you'll
bother to read this. I guess you don't need to.

It's
a shame, really, that you and I will never meet. But, like the song says,
"By the time you read this note, I'll be gone."

We're
so close now. That's the way it feels. So many pieces put together,
spelled out. I guess it's just a matter of time until you find him.

Who
knows what we've done to get here? Must be a hell of a story, if only you
could remember any of it. I guess it's better that you can't.

I
had a thought just now. Maybe you'll find it useful.

Everybody
is waiting for the end to come, but what if it already passed us by? What
if the final joke of Judgment Day was that it had already come and gone
and we were none the wiser? Apocalypse arrives quietly; the chosen are
herded off to heaven, and the rest of us, the ones who failed the test,
just keep on going, oblivious. Dead already, wandering around long after
the gods have stopped keeping score, still optimistic about the future.

I
guess if that's true, then it doesn't matter what you do. No expectations.
If you can't find him, then it doesn't matter, because nothing matters.
And if you do find him, then you can kill him without worrying about the
consequences. Because there are no consequences.

That's
what I'm thinking about right now, in this scrappy little room. Framed
pictures of ships on the wall. I don't know, obviously, but if I had to
guess, I'd say we're somewhere up the coast. If you're wondering why your
left arm is five shades browner than your right, I don't know what to tell
you. I guess we must have been driving for a while. And, no, I don't know
what happened to your watch.

And
all these keys: I have no idea. Not a one that I recognize. Car keys and
house keys and the little fiddly keys for padlocks. What have we been up
to?

I
wonder if he'll feel stupid when you find him. Tracked down by the
ten-minute man. Assassinated by a vegetable.

I'll
be gone in a moment. I'll put down the pen, close my eyes, and then you
can read this through if you want.

I
just wanted you to know that I'm proud of you. No one who matters is left
to say it. No one left is going to want to.

10
EARL'S EYES ARE WIDE OPEN, staring through the window of the car. Smiling
eyes. Smiling through the window at the crowd gathering across the street.
The crowd gathering around the body in the doorway. The body emptying
slowly across the sidewalk and into the storm drain.

A
stocky guy, facedown, eyes open. Balding head, goatee. In death, as in
police sketches, faces tend to look the same. This is definitely somebody
in particular. But really, it could be anybody.

Earl
is still smiling at the body as the car pulls away from the curb. The car?
Who's to say? Maybe it's a police cruiser. Maybe it's just a taxi.

As
the car is swallowed into traffic, Earl's eyes continue to shine out into
the night, watching the body until it disappears into a circle of
concerned pedestrians. He chuckles to himself as the car continues to make
distance between him and the growing crowd.

Earl's
smile fades a little. Something has occurred to him. He begins to pat down
his pockets; leisurely at first, like a man looking for his keys, then a
little more desperately. Maybe his progress is impeded by a set of
handcuffs. He begins to empty the contents of his pockets out onto the
seat next to him. Some money. A bunch of keys. Scraps of paper.

A
round metal lump rolls out of his pocket and slides across the vinyl seat.
Earl is frantic now. He hammers at the plastic divider between him and the
driver, begging the man for a pen. Perhaps the cabbie doesn't speak much
English. Perhaps the cop isn't in the habit of talking to suspects. Either
way, the divider between the man in front and the man behind remains
closed. A pen is not forthcoming.

The
car hits a pothole, and Earl blinks at his reflection in the rearview
mirror. He is calm now. The driver makes another corner, and the metal
lump slides back over to rest against Earl's leg with a little jingle. He
picks it up and looks at it, curious now. It is a little bell. A little
metal bell. Inscribed on it are his name and a set of dates. He recognizes
the first one: the year in which he was born. But the second date means
nothing to him. Nothing at all.

As
he turns the bell over in his hands, he notices the empty space on his
wrist where his watch used to sit. There is a little arrow there, pointing
up his arm. Earl looks at the arrow, then begins to roll up his sleeve.

11"You'd
be late for your own funeral," she'd say. Remember? The more I think
about it, the more trite that seems. What kind of idiot, after all, is in
any kind of rush to get to the end of his own story?

And
how would I know if I were late, anyway? I don't have a watch anymore. I
don't know what we did with it.

What
the hell do you need a watch for, anyway? It was an antique. Deadweight
tugging at your wrist. Symbol of the old you. The you that believed in
time.

No.
Scratch that. It's not so much that you've lost your faith in time as that
time has lost its faith in you. And who needs it, anyway? Who wants to be
one of those saps living in the safety of the future, in the safety of the
moment after the moment in which they felt something powerful? Living in
the next moment, in which they feel nothing. Crawling down the hands of
the clock, away from the people who did unspeakable things to them.
Believing the lie that time will heal all wounds—which is just a nice
way of saying that time deadens us.

But
you're different. You're more perfect. Time is three things for most
people, but for you, for us, just one. A singularity. One moment. This
moment. Like you're the center of the clock, the axis on which the hands
turn. Time moves about you but never moves you. It has lost its ability to
affect you. What is it they say? That time is theft? But not for you.
Close your eyes and you can start all over again. Conjure up that
necessary emotion, fresh as roses.

Time
is an absurdity. An abstraction. The only thing that matters is this
moment. This moment a million times over. You have to trust me. If this
moment is repeated enough, if you keep trying—and you have to keep
trying—eventually you will come across the next item on your list.